Musings about Yarn

I spent all day Sunday spinning.  Spinning yarn, that is, not bike wheels.  When my spinners/weavers guild sent a sign-up for demonstrating at Topanga Banjo and Fiddle Contest and Festival, I knew I HAD to volunteer.  Held at the old movie set spot, Paramount Ranch in Agoura Hills, it was the perfect place to spend a spring Sunday.  Of course, The Professor offered to tag along and help carry my spinning wheel and provide nutrition (read: hot chocolate) when I needed it.  With my hands and mind deep in to fiber, I spun and spun, showed boys, girls, teenagers, men and women how yarn is created.  Other demonstrators were weaving, spinnning and making bobbin lace.  Perhaps it was just the crowd, those who love bluegrass music also love hand made anything, but we were busy all day long.

Now that I'm back home and settled in to teaching, correcting, and planning for the last weeks of classes, part of my brain is still focused on yarn.  It's hard not to be thinking about fiber when it's everywhere around me at home.  Currently, I have a nearly finished cap lying on the ottoman in the living room.  Made from variegated blues and grays handspun super wash wool, it's a feast for my senses--touch and sight.  In the family room the cap's matching fingerless gloves are waiting for me to make a change in one--I miscounted rows early in the pattern and one glove is longer than the other.  And you know, usually, hands are the same size, so I need to change one.  There is also a skein of yarn snuggled up next to the gloves.  It's waiting for me to cast on and make it in to a sweater for one of my niece's twins who are scheduled to make an appearance in a couple of months (or less, knowing twins).  But that's not all the yarn that's around Willow's Cottage.

There is, among many other yarns and projects, a sweater languishing in a paper gift bag. I spun the undyed brown Cowichan wool into a fine yarn a few years ago.  It sat there waiting for the perfect pattern to appear magically.  Finally, I decided to design a pattern myself.  I used the Charmed Knits pattern for the Weasley Sweater as my inspiration.  Instead of a plain stockinette stitch I worked the whole thing in ribs with occasional simple cables.

The sweater is nearly finished, and guess what.  I don't like it.  The neckline is too wide--I wanted a wider neckline so the wool wouldn't sit up against my sensitive skin and make me itch, but I over did the wideness.  I've tried all kinds of fixes but it's just not working.  Also, I have to ask myself why I keep knitting wool sweaters when most of the year it's just too warm in my climate to wear it.  I already have the wool, and I want to be a good steward of my resources, so I endeavor to use up what I have.  I think, finally, I've admitted to myself (and now to the world) that I need to unravel this thing and start over.  Maybe it won't be a sweater again.  Maybe it will become hats, scarves or socks, or even an afghan.  I certainly have enough of the stuff to make an afghan. 

It gets dangerous around here when I begin overthinking my yarn projects.